Cargo cult
There is something everyone wishing to understand Ukrainian political life needs to know.
Ukrainian politics is based on a cargo cult.If you’re not familiar with this term, Let me quote
Wikipedia:
An isolated society's first contact with the outside world can be a shock — often the natives will first assume that the newcomers are spiritual beings of some kind who possess divine powers. With time, however, it will inevitably become apparent that the outsiders are mortal and that their power comes from their equipment (or cargo). Cargo cults tend to appear among people that covet this 'magical' equipment, but are unable to obtain it easily through trade. Given their relative isolation, the cult participants generally have little knowledge of modern manufacturing and are liable to be skeptical of Western explanations. Instead, symbols they associate with Christianity and modern Western society tend to be incorporated into their rituals as magical artifacts. Across cultural differences and large geographic areas, there have been instances of the movements independently organizing.Famous examples of cargo cult activity include the setting up of mock airstrips, airports, offices and the fetishization and attempted construction of western goods, such as radios made of coconuts and straw. Believers may stage "drills" and "marches" with twigs for rifles and military-style insignia and "USA" painted on their bodies to make them look like soldiers, treating the activities of western military personnel as rituals to be performed for the purpose of attracting cargo. The cult members built these items and 'facilities' in the belief that the structures would attract cargo. This perception has reportedly been reinforced by the occasional success of an 'airport' to attract military transport aircraft full of cargo.What happened in Ukraine is very close to this description. The soviet society had been isolated from the West for decades and these were decades when Western democracies were established as we know them or significantly changed so the soviets didn’t really know what democracy was. But they were quite well-educated (or they thought they were), they listened to western radiostations (like “Svoboda”) constantly talking about democracy and later on, during “perestroika”, accompanied by the soviet mass media. So 15-20 years ago, when the USSR was coming to its collapse, the soviets widely believed and, in fact, were advised by many Western experts (or self-constituted experts) that democracy was kind of a magical remedy capable of curing all social diseases existed (or allegedly existed) in the Soviet Union at that time. And to the people, democracy consisted of free elections with multiple parties (and there had to be neither Communist Party nor KGB, of course). Exactly, as it was on the West as they imagined.
In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed they got everything they had dreamed about but somehow it didn’t happen to work. The major achievement was complete corruption affecting the entire country and it became the biggest problem and challenge to politicians. The people many times have supported those who promised to fight the corruption. For example, it’s not generally acceptable to recall that fact now but Mr.Kuchma got his presidency mainly due to promises to stop corruption and put thieves in jails. It never happened. The story recurred in 2004 when Mr.Yuschenko got his presidency mainly due to promises to stop corruption and put thieves in jails. It didn’t happen either. Such promises have been made by many politicians during these years including all current heroes (like Timoshenko, Yanukovich, Moroz, Lutsenko, etc). Never happened.
So it’s been 16 years of unsuccessful attempts to make democracy work in Ukraine and it still doesn’t. It’s been 16 years of unsuccessful attempts to make corruption extinct in Ukraine and it still is. Is that because the copy was not precise and a few corrections (to the constitution, for example) can help or is that because democracy isn’t just “free elections with multiple parties” and blind imitating the West cannot do any good?
